By Eric Krell
Former Boston Consulting Group consultant Melanie Virtue offers succinct advice to any consultant considering a job—or career—change: Don't monkey around. "They should not delay a minute," says Virtue, who coordinates the Great Ape Survival Project Partnership (GRASP) for the United Nations Environmental Program from her post in Nairobi, Kenya. "They should do it right now."
Virtue's passion for primates inspired her to bid farewell to consulting in 1993. The New Zealander, who started her career as a member of BCG Auckland after becoming the first person in her home country to earn a master's degree in primatology, left BCG to work for an environmental consultancy before grabbing a backpack and one-way ticket to Kenya.
"I didn't know a soul there," she recalls, "and I found it difficult to break into the conservation scene." She eventually secured a job with the U.N.'s Environment Program, and did nine years of environmental policy work. Then, in 2002, Virtue's "perfect job" (her current role) opened up, and she landed it. "I still think I have the best job in the world," she asserts.
GRASP unites representatives from U.N. agencies, governments, non-government organizations, foundations and outside interests to eliminate the threat of extinction of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans
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